Avenatti Pocketed Over $30k From His PAC Which Spent $0 On Behalf Of Any Candidate In 2018
Some time ago on DU, after a number of DUers had indicated they were donating, the question arose as to whether Avenatti could pay himself out of the funds for "The Fight" PAC which he had started last year.
I took a look at the overall financials filed with the FEC for the 2018 year-end, and noted that his PAC managed to rack up a variety of travel and dining expenses while contributing absolutely nothing either directly or as independent expenditures on behalf of any candidate for office whatsoever. My post on that is here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211784562
A good chunk of the expenses were for (a) advertising the PAC itself and (b) travel and dining.
He took in and spent over $100k and is down to a little over $10k, so those of you who donated before might want to pull out your wallets and shovel some more cash in, because baby needs new shoes.
You can continue to donate to Avenatti's PAC, which benefits no candidate in any election at all, here: www.thefightpac.org
Give generously, tightwads.
What I failed to notice, since I didn't look at all the detailed expenses was that despite failing to provide material support to a single candidate in any race anywhere in an election here, more than $30,000 - roughly a third of what the PAC spent - did go to a particular individual:
There is no explanation in the FEC filings as to what, precisely, these payments to himself were for.
The FEC is sort of wondering the same thing:
= new reply since forum marked as read
And some of the payments out of his attorney trust account are... interesting.....
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.722683/gov.uscourts.cacd.722683.51.3_11.pdf
In fact, if you drill down on the PAC debit notes, several of the "travel/dining" expenses go into his IOLTA account. He's been playing a shell game with a variety of different bank accounts and payment sources to evade his judgment creditor.
